Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s Staggering Reversal of Fortunes

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Four years ago, Joe Biden was about to start his third attempt to become the president of the US, having been part of the political scene for decades. At the time, he faced an incumbent president in Donald Trump, who jumped through many levels of power, from businessman and reality TV star to the 45th commander in chief.

As America approaches the 2024 presidential election, those two same frontrunners are likely to face each other again. This time, the tables seem to have turned on each other’s fate—though not in the way some might have expected.

With Biden’s announcement that he will seek a second term in the White House expected to take place on Tuesday, the Democrat incumbent is likely to make headway in a thin Democratic field and appears best placed to take on the Republican nominee. . Perhaps this is due to Biden’s legislative agenda, which has seen the passage of landmark bills such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

His opponent will run a different campaign—while the Manhattan district attorney fights criminal charges against him. Trump has denied the allegations and he and his allies have described them as politically motivated.

US President Joe Biden walks through the Rose Garden of the White House to Marine One on April 21, 2023 (L) and (R) former President Donald Trump speaks to guests at the 2023 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum on April 14, 2023 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Their paths to the upcoming election look very different from last time. Drew Angerer/Scott Olson/Getty Images

“Democrats would prefer to run against Trump, for whom the negatives are very high, including among independents,” said Christopher Phelps, a professor of American political history and elections at the University of Nottingham, in the UK. in Newsweek.

Biden’s aides plan to release a video of the launch on April 25—marking exactly four years since he fired the starting pistol in his previous run, the Associated Press reported. He made a short-lived election attempt in 1988, and again in 2008, this time with another two decades of high-profile experience under his belt, eventually becoming Barack Obama’s vice president.

Now getting his own chance to sit behind the Resolute Desk, Democrats have opposed the 80-year-old—who is already the oldest president in US history and will be 82 after election night— will use what they see as his legislative accomplishments as the basis for his pitch to voters, rather than hitting the campaign trail.

“Biden delivers and makes a strong case for re-election before, during and after any formal campaign announcement,” Scott Mulhauser, a Democratic consultant and former Biden spokesman, told the AP.

He added that his “economic and political victories” are “what victory looks like” and “how incumbents win.”

“Biden is old, and he looks old now,” Phelps said. “On the other hand, a lot of people don’t oppose him in a lot of ways; he’s not intimidating in a lot of ways, and that’s not true of Trump.” He noted that Trump, at age 76, “is no spring chicken.”

Biden’s supporters argue that the president inherited a global pandemic that made a deep impact on the country’s economy, and went on to return America to growth and create more than 12 million jobs, while organizing the global response to Russian invasion of Ukraine. A USA Today/Suffolk poll of 1,200 voters, conducted between April 15-18, found that 85 percent of those who voted for Biden in 2020 thought he had done a good job while in office. However, 43 percent of his voters are less excited about supporting him next time, compared to 24 percent who are more excited.

Others noted that Trump’s re-election campaign was also set against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, and that among recent US presidents, he is the only one where Russia has not attacked another country. The same poll found that 93 percent of his voters felt he had done a good job. In contrast to Biden, 45 percent said they were more excited about voting for him in 2024 than last time, compared to 33 percent who were less excited.

Despite Biden’s supporters highlighting the Inflation Reduction Act among his accomplishments, voters seem unconvinced by his handling of the economy overall.

“This is a period of very high inflation-high employment, but if inflation eats away at one’s sense of prosperity, it reduces the cost of unemployment. [rate] in politics,” Phelps said. “It’s pretty easy to be overly simplistic about it, but as a baseline assumption it works, that Americans tend to vote in presidential politics on their perceived economic interests, and most importantly the perceived direction of the economy—not necessarily the state of the economy.”

Some 61 percent of US voters have a low level of confidence in Biden to make good decisions about economic policy, according to an April 7 Pew Research Center poll. This has not changed since 2022. It also found that 65 percent have a low level of confidence in both his policies toward immigration and dealing with China, numbers that have worsened for Biden in the past year.

Phelps said much of the election’s outcome will depend on how the US weathers a potential recession next year. But it also depends on other variables, Phelps said, such as culture wars issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, which have already resulted in a slide toward Democratic candidates in swing states.

One would normally think that being the first president in US history to face a criminal indictment would be a death sentence for a candidate’s hopes of returning to politics. But the felony charges filed against Trump in late March appear to have boosted his support, with two-thirds of his 2020 voters indifferent about the indictment and an additional 27 percent saying it’s more likely they will vote for him.

Florida Gov. issued a statement. Ron DeSantis at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Leadership Summit at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on April 21, 2023, in National Harbor, Maryland. He has “in a way, all of Trumps political instincts, says one political scientist. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Trump also faces a separate investigation in Georgia over efforts to subvert the state’s 2020 election, as well as an FBI probe into classified documents found after he left office at his residence. in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

Nor is this the first presidential campaign he has fought amid controversy. In 2016, he praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing accusations of sexual misconduct, which he denied, and perhaps most famously was caught on tape saying he could kidnap women “by p****,” to which he apologized.

Recent polls have largely put Biden ahead of Trump in a likely 2024 run-off, but only by a few points. A YouGov poll, conducted between April 14-17 among 1,027 registered voters, put the sitting president four points ahead of Trump. However, more recent polls by YouGov and Harris have Trump leading by 1 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

Phelps said that although the US is “many miles away from election day in political terms,” ​​these snapshots are “interesting” because they suggest that “the president of the United States against any Republican comer is the underdog.”

He added that Democrats are not in “great shape,” but said: “That could work in the Democrats’ favor, because when Democratic voters are nervous about the outcome—when they feel unsafe for the incumbent— that’s when they’re both more likely to get out of the house and go to the polls. So the concern factor may actually be encouraging.”

Biden’s expected early announcement could serve to fend off any Democratic rivals. So far, only self-help author Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has spoken out against vaccines and launched his campaign Wednesday, have declared.

Conversely, Trump will likely face a Republican field with at least one other serious contender. Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, and Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, have announced, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is widely expected to throw his hat in the ring.

If DeSantis does, though recent polls suggest he’ll have a hard time beating Trump in the primaries, when pitted against Biden, polls suggest he could draw a similar lead to Trump.

Phelps said the Florida governor “has, in a way, all the political instincts of Trump” when it comes to culture wars rhetoric, but “without all the personal baggage and looking younger.” However, he argued that the outcome of the 2022 Midterms, which gave the GOP slim control of the House, suggested for “a lot of moderate voters, they want extremism to stop.”

Update 04/24/23, 11 am ET: This article has been updated with additional background information.

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